


Down The Rabbit Hole (The Broken Tea Cup Awaits)

by seamanthedog



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Basically un-named illness fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 18:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seamanthedog/pseuds/seamanthedog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had just asked me to meet him in Wonderland. And I promised I would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down The Rabbit Hole (The Broken Tea Cup Awaits)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vvipforseungri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvipforseungri/gifts).



He had just asked me to meet him in wonderland. And I promised I would.

"You're not lying right, you'll really meet me?"

And I turned to him all smiles and eye rolls because he was Jiyong and he always asked the crazy impossible things. But I was Seungri and I always believed I could do it and so I nodded. I would always agree. Jiyong's wishes were always grand and with him we probably were already in wonderland.

"I promise as long as you have tea set up for my arrival."

His grin always wide and full of teeth and too much gum greeted my answer "If you're okay with this crazy mad hatter making it for you then sure." I nodded then, I'd be okay with whatever he wanted. "Make sure you go to the blue table with the broken tea cup."

And he would whisper all conspiratorial like as if his words would be caught by spies and used against him "I broke it the last time I was there so I would remember that it was mine. But don't let anyone else know, I'm trusting you here maknae."

I should have been paying attention then. The mad hatter was rather mad and hardly reliable. But I trusted Jiyong.

****

"He hasn't come to work in a few days. Seungri can you check on him please? He won't answer his calls and I've already sent Youngbae over there once, not a word."

Was I his keeper? No. I didn't understand why I had to be the one to do it. I figured he was going through some sort of work withdrawal. He went through a sort of funk like this a few years ago. It had been depression, he had said, and after a few pills he was Jiyong again. He just needed a few more pills.

I had a key to his apartment that was probably why they had asked. Jiyong was my best friend after all (he was my dreamer, my wisher, he was mine). I let myself in and stopped short. Jiyong had blackout curtains covering the windows, setting the place in darkness. He had always enjoyed it dark but not this dark.

Gaho rushed toward my feet whining loudly. And then I noticed the smell of dog shit and piss and wrinkled my nose. I figured before dragging Jiyong out I'd clean the place. I set about taking Gaho out and picking up his mess, opening the windows, and lighting some candles to air out the apartment.

When I finally made my way back to his room I didn't to knock. I heard some scuffling anyway before bright brown eyes peeked out through a crack in the door at me. And then I was pulled by my arm into his room. Looking around my eyes grew wide. Jiyong was the neatest person I knew. He always kept his room tidy but now I could see scattered piles of clothes and shoes and papers everywhere. Before I could ask about the mess he hurriedly spoke,

"Ah, yeah, I haven't had a chance to clean yet." I knew I had a puzzled look on my face because of course he had time. "Come here." His fingers curled around my wrist and pulled me toward him. And then all my worries were drowned by the taste of mint tea and gum drops.

****

The next week when he didn’t show up for work again I became worried. I had desperately pleaded with his boss to let him use up all his sick and vacation time instead of firing him and he had agreed because he was worried too (everyone was worried, Jiyong was the prodigal son, never missing a day of life, ever).

When I made it to Jiyong’s apartment half his things were on one side of the apartment and the other half had mysteriously disappeared.  
He agreed to go to the doctor with me but only because I promised to let him stay at my place. I could sense he was on edge, his eyes were slightly glassy now and his far away looks kept becoming more frequent.

A tumor they said. One that kept eating away at his brain, spreading and carving pockets of air where once all his creativity and being were. He was still Jiyong to me, still the same hyung who let me steal from his plate of food, wear his clothes – and who would wear mine – the same hyung who wrote me poetry and songs in his spare time and strummed his heart on his guitar.

He was still the same person but not. And when I watched him sleep late at night I could almost pretend everything was normal, that my arms around his waist and his breath on my cheek was like any other Saturday night, almost.

****

I watched him slip away in small ways. Crayon drawings popped up around my apartment, of symbols and tea cups and nonsensical words and no matter how hard I scrubbed they kept appearing until I stopped altogether and they became just another piece of art by Kwon Jiyong. His hair once styled just right, I found in clumps here and there, sometimes it fell out and sometimes I watched him pull it out. He still talked non-stop like he always had. Of dragons and fire and secret tea cup meetings with the Cheshire cat – “who could never be trusted” – of faraway places, and dreams he had, of things he did and wanted me to do too. And somewhere along the way, when the lucid days became far less frequent compared to the far away and glassy eyed ones and the doctor said the medication had done all it could do, I decided I would let him take me with him.

****

"I've fallen"

"Fallen where?"

"Down the rabbit hole" And his eyes were a little too far gone, his smile a little too cracked.

"Can you come back?"

He laughs but it sounds maniacal now,  
"Ri you know you can't fall down the rabbit hole twice."  
He wasn't making sense. None of this was making sense.

"No but can't you come back again?"

"Oh no, no, no. There is no back only forwards and sideways and zigzags and up and down but there is no back."

The skin around his mouth was white almost translucent, like paper but thinner.

"But won't you miss me Ji?" he smiles again spreading thin the layer of skin, he still looked beautiful of course, but it was a mad beauty made up of memories and words that would never make sense anymore.

He leaned forward bone thin fingers curving around my jaw too tight for muscles that had disappeared long ago. I didn't move, couldn't move, didn't want to. And as he neared I stared into glazed eyes that weren't looking at me, hadn't looked at me for a very long time, they were lost in a world that I couldn't see. Inches separated our lips and when he spoke his breath hit my lips like steam from a hot cup of tea.

"I won't miss you. You're coming to wonderland too." And then he kissed me. I tasted insanity and tea on his lips and I'm sure that if I moved an inch from them they would crumble into dried biscuit crumbs or nothing at all.

He smiled even as I spoke against his lips "Down the rabbit hole?"

Fingers brushed through my hair, soft as spider silk, for a moment it felt like the past but it wasn't, not when I still tasted madness on my lips, because it was all wrong.

He pulled back from me a pleased smile on his face and that far away look in his eyes. He sang out in his light dreamlike voice "Down, down the rabbit hole and never back again."

He was the mad hatter now, no more Jiyong with his love for music and clothes far too expensive for him, or me. I sat back in my chair a smile forming on my lips. I was late for tea and I had promised a certain hatter I would meet him at the blue table with the broken tea cup. And he always hated when I was late.

Down, down the rabbit hole and (never) back again.

**Author's Note:**

> For vvipforseungri @ lj and here


End file.
